Beyond anti-liberal political catastrophism?

Resumen

In this chapter, two senses in which catastrophism is relevant to democratic politics are discussed. On the one hand, the adversarial attribution of impending catastrophes to political opponents is ausual practice in democracies and a common polarizing tool amongextremist positions. On the other hand, actual disasters are often depicted as potential crucial factors for policy and eventually social transformations. Exploiting disasters as an opportunity for major shifts andsubstitutions also characterizes some illiberal, anti-liberal and authoritarian-leaning strategies to delegitimize democracies as we knowthem. Liberal democracies might partially tackle this destabilizingcatastrophism insofar as they are able to invest in disaster preparedness policies while correcting democratic short-termism as much aspossible. The social and political construction of coming catastrophesshould thus evolve into a means to build the resilience of existing democracies and to counter internal and external challenges that contribute to their delegitimization.